The sanctuary of Santa Maria Nascente, the Madonna di Debbio to the people of Mandello, stands on a hill among the fields, on the border between Mandello del Lario and Abbadia Lariana, at the top of a flight of steps among cypresses and firs. Inside it keeps on the altar a Madonna of the Milk frescoed in 1434.
History
The place was an almost obligatory passage. Before the roads built by the Austrians in the first half of the 19th century and the Lecco-Colico railway (1892), to reach Mandello one climbed along the Via Ducale up to San Giorgio and then came down, or at Debbio one took the boat: the beach below the church was the landing of a boat owned by the church itself. At that crossroads of water routes and mule tracks stood a church of Saint Stephen, which the sources date in different ways: to 833 for Wikipedia, to 883 for the Pro Loco of the eastern Lario. There is disagreement too on the book that names it, the «Liber Notitiae Sanctorum Mediolani» by Goffredo da Bussero: 1226 for Wikipedia, the end of the 13th century for the Pro Loco. For Wikipedia and the Mandello tourist site the present building can be identified with that ancient church of Saint Stephen.
The visible history begins in 1434, when the noble Stropeni family had a Madonna of the Milk frescoed on a side wall. The painting became much venerated for the graces received by the people of Mandello. In the 17th century the church was renewed: in 1619 it received a bell inscribed «Sancta Maria ora pro nobis», then a cross vault, an altarpiece with the stoning of Saint Stephen and other canvases. The works were paid for with alms and with the devotion that grew after the plague of 1630. The Stropeni bequests can be followed in the records: in 1644 Nicola gave a plot of land so that its income would pay for Masses for him, and Maria Elisabetta on her deathbed ordered 1,200 Masses in fifteen years and left 1,300 lire for upkeep. The last receipt of payment for that bequest is of 1874.
The 18th century changes the building. After the visit of Bishop Olgiati, who in 1712 ordered a sacristy because the vestments were kept in a neighbouring chapel, the sacristy was built in 1736. In 1755 the community detached the fresco from the side wall and placed it above the altar, in a gilded frame, among the 45 ex-votos it had gathered by then; the translation, made on 29 September and celebrated on 21 November, is recorded by a Latin inscription inside the church. In 1760 the sanctuary was dedicated to Santa Maria Nascente and the altar received fake marbles, shells and a starry vault, a scheme similar to that of the sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Fiume: Wikipedia suggests the decorators Giuseppe Pellegrini and Perotti for both, but only as a hypothesis. A restoration of 1781 brought the bell gable and a second sacristy door; on 26 September 1817 Pope Pius VII granted a perpetual plenary indulgence to those who visited the church during the five days of the feast of the Nativity of Mary and consecrated the altar.
What to see
The outside is simple: a gabled façade, a barocchetto doorway flanked by two small grilled windows with granite frames, through which, when the church was closed, one could pray before the image; a wider window sits above the door. In the presbytery the wall behind the altar is painted with scrolls, shells and flowers and, by an illusionistic effect, looks hollowed into a concave niche, with a false apse vault divided into star-sprinkled segments. The rest of the interior is a single nave with a barrel vault and walls of marbled pink, with eleven ovals bearing the symbols and virtues of Mary (one holds a saint, perhaps Aloysius Gonzaga).
The fresco of the Madonna is by an unknown author. It shows the Virgin on a throne covered with a red cloth nursing the Child, held with her right hand, while with the other she holds a sprig of roses. Since 1760 it has been protected by glass in a gilded frame. In the 19th century the breast had been covered, and a recent restoration, recalled by both the Mandello site and the Pro Loco, gave the image back as it was. For centuries women came here to ask for a child, or for protection in pregnancy and nursing, which for a newborn meant survival: the bench outside let one look in even when the church was closed, and flowers and candles were left on the sill.
On the walls, now the end wall, hang the ex-votos: eleven of the 18th century and four of the 19th. Among the latter, one recalls the bursting of a cannon in front of the church during the feast, with no one hurt, to a certain Andrea Ferrario; another the rescue of a child, Felice Venini, who fell into the water from a Lario gondola. The two 17th-century canvases of the presbytery, with the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen and a Madonna and Child with saints, are kept today in the archpriestly church of San Lorenzo.
Getting there
The sanctuary is on the Sentiero del Viandante, just below the church of San Giorgio. In 2011 the Pro Loco described it as a few minutes’ walk from San Giorgio, or reachable from Abbadia by following the path. A 2015 account on a hikers’ blog says instead that from the stretch between San Giorgio and Abbadia one can no longer go down to the church, because the turnstile crossing over the railway has been closed, and that one must make a longer detour with a stretch of provincial road: before setting out it is best to ask the Pro Loco. On 8 September, the feast of the Madonna di Debbio, since 2006 one can also arrive by boat.
Practical information
- Address: the Mandello tourist site gives via Provinciale 12, the regional record the SS 36 del lago di Como e dello Spluga, number 61, località Debbio.
- Opening: by booking at the Pro Loco of Mandello del Lario (0341 732912, mandello@prolocolario.it). On 5 October 2024 a guided visit, promoted by the municipality, included it in a route through five churches of Mandello.
- Accessibility: according to the Mandello tourist site the church is not accessible to people with disabilities; one climbs a flight of steps.
- Feast: 8 September.
Sources
- Visit Mandello, Chiesa della Madonna di Debbio
- Lombardia Beni Culturali, Chiesa della Madonna di Debbio (record 1N070-00034)
- Pro Loco Lario orientale, Debbio… Una Madonna da riscoprire (Simonetta Carizzoni, 2011)
- Le Vie del Viandante, Mandello del Lario - Chiesa della Madonna di Debbio
- libereali, Il sentiero del viandante da Mandello Lario a San Giorgio ad Abbadia Lariana (2015)
- Lario News, Mandello: Cammino nella fede e nell’arte (30 September 2024)
- Wikipedia, entry Santuario di Santa Maria Nascente in Debbio (Mandello del Lario).
